Comments:

Called and left a message and they called back. Just received a Painted Lady philodendron today and it was packed well and sent by USPS priority. The size was good, quality and health were good too. I'll order from them again.

my order confirmation was for a 1 gal johannesteijsmannia altifrons and 1 gal aiphanes horrida. the aiphanes was correct size and is still alive. both plants were shipped bare root, though the nursery advised shipping in pots [at about 2x the cost].the "joey palm" appeared to have come out of a 4 inch pot w/ one leaf about 4 inches long. i potted them both in pre-mixed palm/cactus blend, watered and placed in a sunroom. the leaf on the joey dried 2 days later. i thought this might be due to shipping shock, and continued to monitor the palm hoping to see new growth. after about 6 or 7 weeks i realized it wasn't going to make it.
when i informed mr.andersen of the loss he commented that bare root shipping was not advised and i had waited too long to notify him of the failure.
i was merely trying to save everyone some hassle and make this plant work. from what i've read, i handled the joey properly upon receipt and it would be fine. a strong, healthy plant would have survived those conditions. apparently, my assumptions were incorrect, and mr. andersen puts the blame on me.
i learned a lesson and i advise others to be careful of plant size descriptions.

I called JD Andersen to inquiry about some tropical plants I plan to order. I left a voicemail and received a callback from Dan the next day.

I inquired about price and availability. Dan was very knowledgeable and helpful, and provided all of the information that I asked for. I will be placing my order in 2 weeks, as I'm in Chicago and want to make sure that any last remnants of cool weather have diminished.

All in all, it was a very positive experience.

ChicagoJimOn June 2nd, 2006, ChicagoJim added the following:

Just a follow up from my prior posting weeks ago.

I have received my plants: 2 royal palms and a Sabal Minor.

All plants were in great condition upon arrival and they arrived within the time that Dan said. He also called me when they shipped so I knew they were in route.

As a first time customer to JD Andersen, I'm completely satisfied and will purchase from them again. I highly recommend them!

This nursery isn't the easiest one in the world to reach (understatement of the year), but having driven 230-some-odd miles down from Santa Barbara, I saw with my own eyes loads of exotic, hard-to-find, and well-tended-to palms, cycads, and bananas, at very reasonable prices. This nursery is now run by Dan Anderson (son of Jerry), and he's as delightful a young gentleman to deal with as any. They also do mail-order, but if you're anywhere within reasonable driving distance, this place should * very definitely * be on your must-see list!

Recently,I ordered one of the mail order only "specials" that they advertise on their website (10 palms/$80/shipping included) and am very impressed by what I have received.It is by far the best value I have found in several years of ordering palms through the mail.Jerry is very fair in that some of the plants were small but than others were way bigger than they should have been.It all balanced out for me and I will be ordering again soon.

This nursery has one of the largest varieties of tropical palms and plants I have ever seen.. I have never had anything shipped from there, but I have gone down there personally and shopped on a number of occasions. The owner, Jerry Andersen, is very knowlegable and agreeable, and his plants are invariably in excellent condition in the nursery. Some palms are from a super humid greenhouse, so if you order from him, you migh ask he send stuff from the cold frames instead- probably will take shipping better. Jerry also has a great number of bananas (one of his specialties) and other tropical fruits... excellent nursery and a veritable candy store the palm and tropical lover if you ever get a chance to see it.

I purchased three palms from Jim Andersen and J.D.Andersen Nursery; a small sickly 5 gal Chamaedorea amablis ($175!!), a very small 3 gal Salicca Magnifica ($100!!) and a 3 gal Revenea hildebrandtii ($60). The plams where shipped dry root and arrived in three days from California to Florida. The palms looked very weak and not healthy. Unfortunately the shipping method they use was USPS Priority Mail and the package was damaged (they do not offer insurance) and it was not their fault. The C. amablis stem was broken at the top, the Salicca magnifica was a bit dried out and the R. hilderbrandtii was the only palm of the group that looked good, although all the tips of the leaves were dried out. I immediately contacted them and notified them of the damage, they said they would send out a replacement, to not worry about sending the damaged palm back. Then two days later they called back saying there would be no replacement and wanted the damaged palm back and that they would refund me the cost of shipping it back. It was good thing I didn't throw the palm away. I shipped the palm back via UPS insured 3 Day Select at a cost of $20 plus I purchased $5 special tubes for shipping it back since they said they could bring the palm back to life (even w/ a broken stem) I got back a check for $175 but no reimbursement for the shipping the palm back. I'm not trying to be petty but keep in mind that I had originally paid $50 shipping for all three palms. I made them aware of this OVERSIGHT which they said they would send me another check for the cost of my shipping - which I have yet to see. The S. magnifica ended up dying and the R. hildebrandtii doesn't look good either both palms ended up going into shock. To be honest I appreciate their professionalism of sending the $175 check but not reimbursing the shipping was not right . What I received was not healthy or of good quality and definately not what I expected or paid for. If you don't have good quality plants to ship - don't ship anything! It's not ethical or right to do people wrong just because you want to get rid of some bad plants and they're not in your state. I don't ususally complain but I have to in this case. I lost almost $400 in this deal and it's left a really bad taste in my mouth. Becareful from who you buy.Company representative comment on August 2, 2003:We are very customer orientated and our policy is to refund 100% plus their postage cost to any unsatisfied customer upon return of our product. In this situation the customer opted to keep two of the three plants of which we have no control of. We agreed to refund him the cost plus his postage for the damaged plant upon its return to us. The postage refund was overlooked and is being returned to him also.